


Get Scars To Get What You Deserve

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Burns, Established Relationship, Explosions, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Poe Dameron Hurts So Prettily, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 09:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn has been looking for some way to help the Resistance. He ends up saving the life of the Resistance's best pilot on his first mission out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Scars To Get What You Deserve

**Author's Note:**

> Please, be warned that not only is there talk of an explosion that injures a character, there is a bit of observation of the wounds themselves. If that's something that's not for you, be warned now.
> 
> Title taken from ["Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)" by Andy Grammer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDu93pdyBDE). Throw on coal, motherfuckers.

Ever since Finn had officially been discharged from medbay and totally healed up, he had been pushing and pushing Poe to help him find a job to do. He followed Poe to the hangar to work on _Black One_ , he sat with him at his meals, he started to room with him, and he constantly asked if there was anything he could do for the Resistance. He wanted to be the big deal he pretended to be for Rey, but he wanted to be it for _real_. Poe clapped him on the shoulder and told him he _was_ a Big Deal, but Finn never felt like he was. He just felt like someone who continuously lied and accidentally succeeded. Poe assured him that was not true, but, what can you do.

Eventually, Finn found himself sitting against the wall in the room he and Poe shared, playing a game with BB-8 that he was fairly certain the droid was making up as they went along. He glanced up at Poe to see him sitting at his desk, sprawled back in his chair, one leg bent over the other, looking tired as he read reports on his holopad. BB-8 noticed Finn’s distraction and chirped at him, making Poe turn to look at them.

“Hey, BB, what’s up?” Poe asked, setting down his holopad. BB-8 abandoned Finn to roll over to their master, and Poe leaned down over his knees. BB-8 chirped and beeped for far too long for Finn’s liking, and Poe laughed at the end of it. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“What is?” Finn inquired, stretching his legs out on the floor. Poe glanced up at him.

“You want something to do?” Poe asked, and Finn sat up excitedly.

“Absolutely, yeah, I want something to do!” Finn said, and Poe laughed.

“Well, Jess and Snap and I have a mission in the morning, just a routine deal, but we’ve heard there might be First Order traps around there, so we need a trained gunner to watch our backs.” Poe motioned towards Finn. “You in?”

“Of course I’m in! I want to help the Resistance,” Finn said, trying to seem more serious than excited, but Poe just laughed again. He stood from his desk chair, and Finn scrambled to his feet. “Great, are we going now?”

“No,” Poe answered, tugging his shirt off over his head, and Finn’s mouth went dry. “I just thought we should get to bed, if we’ve got such a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Finn nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yeah. For sure, definitely.” He yanked off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the desk chair. Finn got caught in his t-shirt as he tripped towards Poe, who just laughed as Finn freed himself, launched himself at Poe, and pinned him to the mattress. Poe stopped laughing when Finn started to kiss the living daylights out of him, but he kept on smiling.

The next morning, when Poe’s alarm went off, Finn blinked awake to find himself pressed into the mattress by Poe’s weight sprawled across him. Poe groaned and buried his face in Finn’s chest. Finn pat at the back of his head, already wide awake, a product of years of conditioning. Poe, however-

“I’m not going,” Poe grumbled into Finn’s skin, burrowing further into the blankets. Finn wriggled under him until their faces were close enough for them to kiss. Before he knew it, Poe was lazily sucking a hickey into his throat, and the alarm was starting to blare again. Poe reached over and struck out at his holoclock until it turned off.

“We have to go,” Finn reminded him, and Poe sat up, smiling at him, hair a tangled, curly mess around his face.

“I forgot you were coming with.” Poe kissed him again before pulling their covers off and starting to search through his drawers for the thermal layers he wore underneath his flight suit. He dug out his extra set and tossed them to Finn. “You can wear those.”

Finn rolled out of bed and started tugging on his clothes, watching as Poe bent over his dresser to dig out thick socks. Poe swatted at Finn when he draped himself over Poe’s lean frame. He turned to slot his laughing mouth against Finn’s.

“Get dressed,” Poe murmured against his lips, pushing a pair of socks into Finn’s hands. Finn kissed him one last time before falling over trying to pull the socks on. BB-8 spun out of their charging station in the corner of the room and starting nudging at Finn’s ankles while Poe looked on and laughed. The three of them made it to the hangar on time, Finn pulling the collar of his thermal up in an attempt to hide his hickey. Judging by the looks Jessika was giving him, he was mostly unsuccessful.

Poe found him a flight suit that fit him well enough while BB-8 made their way over to _Black One_. Finn had no idea how to fly an X-wing, so Poe dug out the space behind the pilot’s seat in his X-wing for Finn to shove himself into for the trip, which would not really be so long that Finn would cramp up. After a quick debrief from General Organa, Finn shoved himself and his blasters in the X-wing and waited for Poe to finish getting his classified pieces of information before he leapt up into his cockpit.

“You ready, buddy?” Poe called through the headsets in their helmets. Finn banged on the back of his seat, and Poe laughed, pulling the door of _Black One_ shut and starting them up. He led Jessika and Snap off the ground and into the sky, sending them into hyperdrive almost immediately. Finn stared out the windows from behind the pilot’s seat as stars streaked by them.

“So, we’re getting information, basically?” Finn asked, after a few good minutes of silence as the two of them watched space pass them by. Poe nodded.

“We’ve got a contact on the far side of Takodana, and we’ve got to bring her back to General Organa,” Poe explained. “She’s got information for us about the First Order’s next plan. We just have to be careful, because we know the First Order has been stationing troops on Takodana, so they’ve gotta be on the lookout for us.”

“Well, shit,” Finn said, and he heard Jessika and Snap laugh through his headset.

“Well said, Trooper,” Jessika replied, and Finn grinned.

“Everybody look out for traps,” Poe reminded his team. “Finn’s gonna be watching our backs, but I want everyone on alert, got it? We get in, we grab Miaplacidus, we get out. No lingering.”

“Understood,” Jessika and Snap said simultaneously. Finn nodded, and Poe smacked the top of his helmet, grinning.

“Good to have you along, buddy,” Poe said, and Finn pulled his helmet back so Poe could see him grinning. Poe turned his head to kiss him, keeping his controls straight as he did so. They didn’t call him the best pilot in the galaxy for nothing, Finn thought, and the most daring to boot.

“Alright, Black Leader, eyes on the prize,” Snap said over the system, and Poe laughed, breaking away from Finn and returning his full attention to his ship.

“They were,” Poe replied. BB-8 beeped in the back of the ship, and Poe started laughing again as he and the two ships behind him fell out of hyperdrive in time for a clean break into Takodana’s atmosphere. They slid down fairly gracefully onto the surface of Takodana, hiding their ships in the shelter of the trees. Finn yanked his helmet back into place and waited until they were fully stopped before equipping himself with his blasters. Poe pushed the door open and hopped out of the ship, Finn right at his heels, two blasters hanging at his hips, the third one in his hands. Jessika and Snap left their ships to join them. Poe waved at BB-8 and told them to stay quiet and run away if they had to before they set off into the woods.

“Alright,” Poe murmured, looking down at the astrocompass in his hands. “We’re heading in the right direction. Snap, keep my right; Testor, take Finn’s left. Finn, stay at my flank,” he instructed, tapping at his left side, and Finn fell into position, a move he was well-trained in. “Keep an eye out. Finn, you know what the traps should look like. Let us know if anything looks suspicious, anything at all.”

“Got it,” Finn replied. He hefted the blaster in his hands and started watching the areas in front of and around them intently. He knew the consequences of failure. He blew out a hard breath and returned the smile Jessika tossed his way. Poe was an impressive leader, shifting into a strong power position that Finn had caught only glimpses of since they met.

The four of them traveled in near-silence for a while, all of them keeping eyes on the trees around them, Finn most of all, determined as ever to prove himself. Poe came to a stop after a bit of walking, and he looked around them, a confused crease to his brow.

“Miaplacidus should be here,” Poe said quietly, pocketing his astrocompass and pulling his blaster up into his hands. Jessika began moving slowly, starting to pick through the trees near them for any sign of their contact, Finn staying at her back. He could hear Poe and Snap searching the clearing they were meant to meet in. He also heard the crack of a twig, and he recognized a silver disc on the ground just in time to stop Jessika from stepping on it. He yanked Jessica back, away from the disc that he recognized as a First Order landmine, and whirled them to face Poe and Snap.

“They’re here,” Finn murmured into his headset. Poe looked up at him, then past him, and Finn spun, shooting on instinct. Sure enough, Stormtroopers had slowly begun to filter in and surround them, and the four of them cracked into action, firing left and right, sending broken pieces of Stormtrooper armor flying. Finn steeled his mind against the wrongness he felt at shooting people he had so long considered his comrades and fired shot after bright shot at the enemy. He stopped when he heard a soft _click_ behind them, and his chest seized up, heart gripped with ice. His head snapped back to look at Poe, and he met his terrified eyes for just a second behind the visors on their helmets before a look of hard determination fell over Poe’s face. His boot pressed into the disc he had stepped on, and he did not move.

“Keep shooting,” Poe ordered, unmoving from the spot he was standing on as he fired at the Stormtroopers around them. “Snap, get closer to Finn and Testor, and the three of you gotta back the hell up.”

“Poe-”

“ _Now_ ,” Poe interrupted him, and Finn’s jaw snapped shut with a hard clack. He and Poe stared at each other, and Finn watched the edges of Poe’s expression soften a little. “It’s going to be okay.”

Finn grabbed Snap’s wrist once he was close enough and jerked his comrade behind him. When Poe twisted at the waist to keep firing on the approaching Stormtroopers, Finn pushed Jessika behind him before turning and starting to run, taking care to avoid the landmines scattered in the grass. Jessika and Snap were hot on his heels, following as Finn ran as deep into the woods as he could. He heard a faraway _click_ , sickeningly familiar, and the three of them were knocked off their feet by the explosion at their backs. The heat from the blast was not so overwhelming that Finn could not immediately stand back up.

“Poe!” he screamed, bolting back towards where Poe had been. The clearing was crackling, fires burning in the dying grass, embers sparking the leaves in the trees towering over their heads. Jessika and Snap were hightailing it right behind him; he could hear their boots pounding on the dense dirt ground, punctuated by the sound of blasters getting fired at the Stormtroopers following them. He coughed against the smoke in the clearing and started searching through the broken branches and the ash and the thick, billowing smog. He found Poe a little ways away, gasping for air on the ground, and Finn almost wished he had found him unconscious, because the look on his face was not something Finn was soon going to forget.

“Hey, Poe, hey, it’s going to be okay,” Finn assured him, falling to his knees and pulling Poe’s head gingerly into his lap. Poe cried out, and Finn ripped off a piece of his singed flight suit to stuff into Poe’s mouth. “I’m really sorry, you have to be quiet, there’s still troopers out here looking for us.”

Poe stared up at him, bubbling burns marring his face, the smell of singed flesh acrid and angry in the air. He nodded, once, and his eyes squinted shut against the pain. Finn glanced him over, swallowing hard against the bile in his throat. Any part of Poe that his flight suit could not protect was scorched, third- and fourth-degree burns destroying his skin. Whatever was not burned through was slick with blood, and Finn could swear he saw muscle and bone in a couple places. He bent his head over Poe’s for a second before sliding one arm under his knees, the other under his back.

“This is gonna hurt,” Finn said softly, and Poe opened his eyes to watch him. Finn wished it had been him. Poe looked like he was wishing he had died, but Finn could not stop thanking his lucky stars that he had not. Finn stood, hauling Poe up with him, and Poe’s whole face went dark, any sounds he was making muffled by the burnt fabric in his mouth.

“I know you’re going to be okay,” Finn promised him. He hoped desperately for it to be true. Poe’s attention on him was losing its sharpness, and Finn jostled him a little as he moved back to Jessika and Snap, just to keep him awake. “You are. You’re already doing so well.”

“Holy fuck,” Jessika said once she saw him, one hand flying up over her mouth. Finn shoved all his panic and screaming down into the pit of his stomach to deal with later, once they were back at their base on D’Qar. Snap stumbled away from them to vomit behind a tree.

“Are the Stormtroopers gone?” Finn demanded, and Jessika nodded jerkily, eyes glued to Poe. “Good. Good work. Take the sleeve out of his mouth, please.”

Jessika stepped forward and pulled the ashy piece of cloth out of Poe’s mouth. Poe cried out, then went quiet, watching her with red eyes.

“Doesn’t hurt so bad,” Poe whispered gingerly, one side of his mouth crisped under the burns. “Barely anything. Just- Ahh, it’s- little burn. Just little.”

“Stop talking,” Finn commanded, and Poe rolled his attention back to him.

“Thank you,” Poe murmured, and Finn tightened his grip on him, watching his face attentively, drinking in every inch of him. “Finn-”

“Don’t,” Finn interrupted, certain he knew where Poe was going. “Don’t do it. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Poe stared hard up at Finn, and Finn stared back, willing himself to keep looking at Poe’s eyes and to ignore the rest of him. Poe pressed his face into Finn’s chest, the top of his singed head brushing the sensitive bruise he had put on Finn’s neck that morning, and Finn’s throat was suddenly thick, his lungs thin.

“We found Miaplacidus. She’s dead,” Jessika informed Finn as Snap returned to them. He pointedly did not look at Poe. Finn knew command fell to Snap when Poe was incapacitated, and he watched as Snap remembered his training and straightened up.

“We have to get back to the ships and get back to D’Qar immediately,” Snap instructed. He hauled his blaster into his hands and glanced over his shoulder before turning to his three soldiers. “I’ll send ahead, let them know about- about what happened, and we’ll talk with the General once it’s all done.” Snap’s eyes darted to Poe, who was watching him silently.

“Good,” Poe replied simply, before coughing and deciding he was done holding up his own head, letting it loll back against Finn’s arm. Finn readjusted him to push Poe’s head against his chest, keeping him from hurting his neck any further.

“Can you fly an X-wing?” Snap asked Finn as they were gliding through the trees, trying to keep as much cover as they could in the dense, leafy branches.

“I watched him on the way here,” Finn answered. “Between me and BB-8, I can get us home.”

“Good, good,” Snap replied. He led them as quickly as he could back to their ships. By the time Finn got to _Black One_ , BB-8 was spinning frantically around his feet, beeping at a pace even Poe seemed to be struggling to keep up with.

“He’s going to be fine, BB-8, just get back into the ship,” Finn instructed, nudging BB-8 towards their station in the back of the X-wing. Finn passed Poe off to Snap so he could scramble up into the cockpit of _Black One_ , and Snap heaved Poe up to drape along the length of Finn’s body. Snap slammed the door shut and sprinted back to his own ship, and Poe’s burnt face pressed into Finn’s cheek, leaving streaks of blood behind.

“Hey, stay with me,” Finn instructed, flipping random switches that looked important and grabbing the controls he had watched Poe maneuvering on the way there. “Stay awake. We’re gonna get you there, you’re gonna be okay, you hear me?”

Poe nodded weakly against his neck, and Finn felt the slight uptick of a smile touching his skin as they took off into the sky. “What’ll you… If I don’t?”

“You will, so don’t make me think about it,” Finn said firmly, and Poe laughed roughly, low in his throat, barely there.

“I’ve had worse,” Poe muttered, and Finn hesitated before pressing a hard kiss to Poe’s crisp, blood-soaked temple. He yanked off his helmet with one hand and sent the ship into hyperdrive. Poe lost consciousness somewhere in the middle of entering hyperdrive and landing back on base, and Finn nearly broke the door on the X-wing trying to get out of it. Jessika yanked it open from the outside and helped Finn haul Poe out of the ship. Finn heaved Poe onto the hypergurney that the medidroids had waiting.

The first person Finn actually saw was General Organa, who was watching Poe with such genuine concern and anguish on her face that Finn felt his heart jump, but he squashed the feelings down again. Poe still needed him, he had to wait before freaking out. Finn sprinted after the medidroids as they took Poe away, the doctors kneeling over Poe on the hypergurney already starting to prod at him. BB-8 dropped out of _Black One_ and started wheeling as fast as they could after the hypergurney.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” Finn demanded, and one of the medidroids fell back beside him, scanners still humming and glaring blue over Poe’s face.

“His chances of survival are-”

“Don’t tell me,” Finn interrupted the medidroid. “Just fix him.”

The medidroid went silent, then nodded its shiny head and affixed itself to the back of the hypergurney to keep pace. Finn felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins starting to ebb now that they were back on D’Qar and Poe was with people who could actually help him beyond trying to keep his pieces together and his skin on. He swallowed past the hysteria bubbling up in his throat as Rey came hurtling to his side, staying at his flank as she took in Poe.

“They said you were back and someone got hurt,” Rey shouted to him over the quickly-growing noise surrounding them as they flew into medbay. Snap had stayed behind with General Organa, but Jessika was still hot at Finn’s side. A medidroid forbid them entrance to wherever they were taking Poe once they were in medbay, and Finn stretched up onto his toes to watch as Poe vanished around a corner and the doors slid shut. Rey put a hand on his forearm gently, grounding him, tethering him to the ground beneath his feet. Jessika guided them both back into the waiting room and pushed Finn into a chair.

“He’s going to be okay,” Jessika told him, and Finn could see the lie in her face, could hear the disbelief in her own words in her voice. Rey knelt down in front of Finn, craning her neck to look up into his face as he hung his head.

“Are you hurt?” Rey asked softly, and Finn shook his head. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, pulling his face into the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, but all Finn could see when he shut his eyes was Poe’s burned face, feel his blood slipping under his hands, see his bone and his frightened eyes. Poe, stubborn and a smartass to the last, who tried to make jokes as he was dying. He forced his eyes back open and stared up at Jessika over Rey’s shoulder.

“It’ll be okay,” Rey murmured, stroking the back of his head, and Finn folded his arms around her shakily before breaking apart. The adrenaline finally drained out of him, leaving him feeling hollow and horrified by everything. He shuddered, took a trembling breath, feeling limp and useless. “You saved him. You got him back. He’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t- I don’t know-” Finn pulled back from Rey and clutched as his own chest. “Rey, _Rey_ -”

“Hey, Finn, it’s okay, you’re here with me, he’s going to be okay.” Rey grabbed his face firmly, the callouses on her hands pressing into his cheeks. She stared into his eyes, and Finn stared back, mostly unseeing. She shook his head a little bit. “Finn? Stay with me. He wouldn’t want that, Finn, he would want you focused, right? Focus on me.”

Finn dropped his head into his hands, trying to slow down his breathing, and Jessika shoved a balled-up leaf in front of him. He looked up at her in confusion, but she just opened up his mouth and shoved the leaf in.

“Chew,” she instructed, and Finn bit down on the leaf, an explosion of mint mushrooming in his mouth. The sharpness cleared his head a little. Rey watched him warily as he focused on her face, dragging his attention back to her eyes.

“I don’t know what to do,” Finn whispered to her, and Rey kissed his forehead before pulling him close again.

“We’ll figure it out,” Rey promised. “We’ll figure it out.”

Finn stayed in the front room of medbay while the doctors and medidroids worked on Poe somewhere deeper in the sector. Jessika stayed with him until General Organa called for her report; BB-8 beeped sadly at him, staying with him but remaining mostly silent on the floor. Rey stayed with him the whole time, falling asleep with her head on his shoulder. Her master, Skywalker, came once to check on her whereabouts, and offered Finn his luck and condolences before leaving again, and Finn could barely drag up a feeling of excitement at meeting Luke Skywalker himself.

General Organa came to Finn to get his report concerning the events on Takodana late in the night, when Rey was deeply asleep, snoring near Finn’s ear and babbling nonsense to herself periodically. General Organa took a seat across from Finn and recorded everything he said to her. She saved the files and flicked off the holopad when he finished. He appreciated that she kindly did not comment on the multiple times he had to stop and gather himself.

“Dameron has been in deep sneakers before,” General Organa told him, and Finn snorted before remembering himself. The corner of the General’s mouth quirked up. “From what I have been told, he is expected to recover.”

Finn’s whole body relaxed, slumping in his hard chair and rubbing roughly at his face. Rey, bless her, slept through the whole thing.

“Are you sure?” Finn asked, and General Organa nodded. Finn laughed, a desperate, relieved sound, and dropped his head into his hands as he tried to pull himself together. Rey did wake up at this, jerking up in her chair and squinting blearily at General Organa before focusing on Finn, who she immediately put one arm around when she saw the state of him.

“What happened?” Rey asked, seeming to be talking to General Organa more than to him, but Finn shook his head. “Oh, Finn-”

“He’ll be okay,” Finn told her. “He’s going to be okay. He’s- _Shit_.”

Rey squeezed him tightly, keeping him close and pressing her cheek to the top of his head. She kissed his temple before looking up at General Organa. “When can he see him?”

“That, I don’t know,” General Organa replied, standing. “But when he can, send for me, won’t you? I won’t have my best pilot thinking he’s so important that I waited around for him all this time.”

“Of course,” Rey said, and General Organa took her leave. It took another little while before a doctor accompanied by a medidroid actually approached them. BB-8 chirped, spinning around Finn’s feet as he stood from the hard chair, Rey grasping his hand tightly.

“Well?” Finn tried, going for demanding but ending up soft and desperate. The doctor smiled at him, and everything in Finn’s chest loosened. Rey’s hand on his kept him standing.

“He’s going to make a full recovery, but it’ll take time,” the doctor told him, and Rey stroked up and down his arm, grounding him. The doctor and the medidroid led Finn, Rey, and BB-8 through the sterile white halls of medbay back to a room near where Finn had stayed while he was healing after his lightsaber wounds.

“You’ll remember the dermal regenerator we used on your shoulder and your back after you got burned,” the doctor said as they walked, the medidroid beeping back and forth with BB-8 as they made their way through medbay. Finn nodded in reply. “We’ve used an advanced version of it on him. It’ll take some time to fully cooperate with his system, but his muscles and bones have already pulled back together and his skin is beginning to rebuild. He’ll have scars, but he’ll be okay.”

“Thank you,” Finn said, more genuinely than he had ever meant before, and the doctor smiled at him as they came to a stop outside a closed door.

“He won’t be awake,” the doctor informed him, tone gentle. “Don’t touch him. He’s still regenerating, we can’t let anything disrupt the process.”

“We won’t touch him,” Rey promised, reaching down to hold Finn’s hand and squeeze it. BB-8 chirped at their feet, and the doctor let them in. Finn let go of Rey to rocket inside, hovering uncertainly over the cot Poe was lying on. He wanted more than anything to touch him, to take his hand and kiss his forehead and shake him awake, but he kept his hands to himself. Rey slid up to his side and took his hands in hers, glancing over Poe for herself.

“He looks… better,” Finn said, eventually. He turned and hefted BB-8 up into the chair so they could see Poe. BB-8 beeped, spinning their head up to look at Finn, and Finn pat the top of their head. “He does. He looked- Well, you remember how he looked.” BB-8 trilled and turned their attention back to Poe. Finn sat down in the chair beside BB-8, Rey perching on the arm of it, watching Poe in silence.

He was lying motionless, which horrified Finn in and of itself, but he did look much better than he had on Takodana. In the past several hours, while Finn had waited, they had pulled most of him back together. The flight suit had protected good chunks of him, leaving his hands seeming unmarred, and it was mostly Poe’s back that was hurt, the medidroid reporting that they believed Poe had turned his back and started to run before the landmine exploded. One side of his face had mottled white scarring. Finn reached out, but Rey gently grabbed his wrists and pulled them back into his lap.

Finn sat up watching Poe for the whole night and well into the day before he fell asleep on accident. He jolted awake when Rey returned, holding a tray from the mess hall in her hands. She frowned as she set the tray down on the small table in the corner of the room.

“I’m sorry, I wanted you to sleep longer,” Rey said softly, and Finn shook his head, dropping it into his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Finn murmured into his palms, and Rey didn’t ask for what, just curled up on the arm of the chair again and rubbed his back. Finn picked at his bread, waited. Picked at his soup, waited. Drank little cups of water when Rey pushed them into his hands. Waited some more. It had been a little over three days when he was allowed to touch Poe again, and he did as soon as the words were out of the doctor’s mouth, grabbing Poe’s hand in his and pressing Poe’s palm to his face.

BB-8 chirped softly with the medidroid that night, and the medidroid beeped back before bringing in another cot for Finn to sleep on, pushing it up close to Poe’s. Finn held Poe’s hand tightly while they slept. Poe’s skin was clean now, the traces of blood long gone, even if Finn’s memories of them lingered. He had more and more skin every day, wounds knitting together slowly but surely. He had less scarring than Finn would have expected, but more than he knew Poe would have liked. By the end of a week and a half, the dermal regenerator had healed him as far as he could get. Patches of scars lined his back, the backs of his legs. He had one burn scar wrapping around to his chest, over his heart. The back of his neck, and creeping onto his face, was white and raised, a scar that would stay until the day he died.

“Which better be ninety years from now, at least,” Finn threatened in the general direction of Poe’s sleeping body when the doctor told him that. BB-8 beeped, and Finn thought he might be starting to understand them, because that sounded like agreement to him.

Two weeks and three days after the mission, Poe’s eyes flickered, then shot open while Finn was sleeping. Poe sat up in his cot, pulling at Finn’s hand without meaning to, and Finn blinked blearily up at him before he remembered himself and called for the medidroid. He took Poe’s head between his hands, and Poe stared at him, chest heaving.

“I blew up on Takodana,” Poe said breathlessly, and Finn nodded, something deep in his chest loosening at the sound of Poe’s voice. Poe reached up hesitantly, touched the side of his face, feeling along the raised scar tissue there. He looked down at his hands, still working, unscarred, protected by his flight gloves. He exhaled shakily.

“You’re okay,” Finn murmured, stroking the side of his face. He pushed their foreheads together before the medidroid came in and chirped at them. Poe listened to whatever they said, moving away from Finn and allowing the droid to begin running a series of tests on him. Poe answered questions quietly, but he seemed to be gaining strength the longer he was awake, coming back to himself. He made a joke to the medidroid nearly half an hour into the tests, and Finn was caught between laughing and crying. BB-8 beeped excitedly, spinning around under their cots, and Poe leaned over the side of his cot to embrace them.

By the time the medidroid left them, letting the lights dim back down in their absence, Poe was smiling wide and seeming more like himself. Finn touched him carefully, waiting for any signs of pain. Poe went easily, letting Finn inch into his cot and wrap his arms around him.

“I was afraid,” Finn admitted. Poe rested his head on Finn’s chest, scars pressing into Finn’s smooth skin.

“Oh, I’ll always come back for you,” Poe reminded him. “Best pilot in the galaxy, and you think I’m not going to find my way back?”

“You can be such an asshole,” Finn muttered, and Poe laughed. He shut his eyes and turned his face into Finn’s skin. “I wait two weeks for you, and for this? I don’t think so.”

“I know so,” Poe said, voice muffled. He shut his eyes, jerked, and his eyes snapped back open. Finn looked down at him nervously.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Poe exhaled. Finn rubbed at his back, calloused fingers trailing over scar tissue. Poe nodded.

“I will be,” he answered, and Finn pressed his forehead to the top of his head.

**Author's Note:**

> I edited this to the best of my ability, but I was literally falling asleep while doing it, smacking my head into the keyboard and everything. So, hopefully nothing is glaringly wrong, because here it goes, off into the world. Hopefully the characterization is okay, as well.
> 
> Rock and roll, you magnificent sons of bitches. We need thousands more fics for these morons.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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